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Elif Bet

a house-warming party

with a play reading dropped in the middle

Every season,

the Elif team invites our community members into a cozy space in NYC to hear an early-draft play. 

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The letters "Elif" and "Bet" begin the Semitic alphabets. They are the first two building blocks for dozens of languages. The Elif Bet Play Reading Series celebrates beginnings and makes the audience a building block from the very first draft. "Bet" means house—and that's where you are, at home with us.

The evening begins and ends with a gathering, an opportunity for artists in our community to get to know each other. In the middle, actors from our community will read the play draft for the first time.

Welcome + Gathering

Play Reading

Talkback

Gathering + Close

Join us at an Elif Bet soon.

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Upcoming

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Aug 22nd @ 9:30PM

Aug 25th @ 8PM

Dovecote

by Maya T. Weed

Dovecote is a 90-minute hurricane play and love letter to grandparents, the South Florida landscape threatened by the ever-encroaching climate crisis, sibling-hood, and an anxious lament about the infiltration of AI and wasteful tech in all corners of our lives. Set not too long from now in the lower Florida Keys, as dangerous storms plague the southeast with increasing severity and frequency, the Colman matriarch's stilted house has recently been retrofitted with an advanced climate protection software. With her three granddaughters holding down the fort in her absence, and the rifts between them left untended, making it through the night in one piece may only be possible if they air their long-held grievances and freshly-kept secrets.

Past Readings

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